Supreme Court rules that strip searches are totally legal, regardless of a warrant

Man, you just have to love living in a police state. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and when a policeman tells you to take your clothes off, you better pucker up and do it quick because the Supreme Court just made it totally legal to do so, even without a warrant. The court voted in a 5-to-4 ruling that authorities may strip search you for whatever offense, no matter how minor, if they believe that they have the right to.

When is it “too far,” America? When are we going to wake the fuck up, get our heads out of the glowing rectangular mirrors of TV and the internet, and start actually protesting these giant missteps into our basic human rights? International human right policies strictly forbid shit like this, and we seem to just take it on the chin like it’s not their fault, it’s ours – ambling along bitterly and eating like some sort of bastardized Betty Draper. How much do we hate ourselves to let this happen?

Citing examples from briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip-search” after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell.

A nun was strip-searched, he wrote, after an arrest for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration.

Justice Kennedy responded that “people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.” He noted that Timothy McVeigh, later put to death for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, was first arrested for driving without a license plate. “One of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before hijacking Flight 93,” Justice Kennedy added.